Man, even though we’re already over a full month into the year 2012, it still weirds me out to see the number written up there. Scandalous, almost. I don’t know if it’s because I’m old and full of rage when things change, or if that nerdy part of me feels like I should be in the future and my brain can’t reconcile the differences. Either way, 2012 is already shaping up to be a pretty fantastic year for games.
As such, we thought we would kick off the first Would You Rather for the year, one that will hopefully leave you all begging for mercy because of the difficult choices that await you. For the Would You Rather newbies out there, the game is easy: we ask and you dish out your response. Give as much or as little explanation as you want for your choices, but we all know that we like to see the reasoning behind the madness.
Don’t let your answers suck, though. I will personally come to your house and unleash a devastating Krav Maga attack on you. For real. OK go!
1. Would you rather a favorite developer re-visit a franchise you don’t love to try and fix it the second time around, or scrap it and jump to something new altogether?
2. Would you rather learn little bits and teases about an anticipated game, or get an info dump when the developer is finally ready to show the project off?
3. Would you rather have an Online Pass that controls multiplayer access or one that unlocks single-player content?
4. Would you rather see a beloved series end or get turned into an MMO?
5. Would you rather games get more expensive but have far more content, or get less expensive and have less content?
6. Would you rather experience your favorite game again for the first time or have HD remakes of all of your favorites?
1. I think I would rather let bygones be bygones. I even think some series I loved that have flaws shouldn’t be revisited. To me, let them end up how they were. I was sad when Halo CE got redone but it was just a reach map pack in the part that mattered most to me. Sometimes, revisiting it can make it worse.
2. Bits and pieces. It makes it WAY more entertaining. Dumps, like the MW3 dump, just kind of ruine it. I never payed attention to it, and Im glad I didnt.
3. If I buy a game, I would rather have a code for something in single player rather than needing one for online play. The reason I say that is because if I buy a game used, I dont want to have to pay $10 just to get said pass to play online. Now if said pass was needed to play single player, it may change depending on the game.
4. End. MMOs are a crapshoot IMO. You end up with so much expectation. Also, imagine if games like Skyrim got turned into an MMO, it would loose so much of what made it unique. To me, MMOs are MMOs for a reason, let it stay that way.
5. More on both ends. I would hate to see games have less, even at a lower cost. Reason is, I like getting a lot out of a $60 game. If I pay $30, and I feel shorthanded, it would be worse than if I paid $80 and felt like I had too much content. Even if I dont use all of the content on the $80 game, at least it can be justified as its there.
6. HD remake. This one is tough because I feel that reliving games like Halo 2 for the first time would be mind-boggling (again) but something would be lost after its over. I think that if games got HD remakes (and I mean JUST graphics) then we would see a lot more nostalgia factors being relived and that feeling may come back all together. Ill pick on Halo Anniversary again, it fell far short of expectation. When they re-make a game, specifically an “HD Remake” I want the game to be just a graphics update. If you add in multiplayer online, make it the same multiplayer it had as split screen. Id it had none, try and make it as close to original as possible. The fact that Halo Aniv took the game, made it an HD remake, but took a lot of the original physics and playstyle out ruined it for me. I didnt want a Halo CE map pack. I wanted what Halo CE for the PC was, pure Halo CE with multiplayer, same guns, same physics, and a better look. HD remakes are a very iffy thing.
1. Would you rather a favorite developer re-visit a franchise you don’t love to try and fix it the second time around, or scrap it and jump to something new altogether?
–Scrap it. we all saw what happened with Duke Nukem.
2. Would you rather learn little bits and teases about an anticipated game, or get an info dump when the developer is finally ready to show the project off?
–That’s a tough one. Probably an info dump. That way there’s a lot to get to sift through and less impatience between revelations.
3. Would you rather have an Online Pass that controls multiplayer access or one that unlocks single-player content?
–Online pass for multiplayer. I didn’t buy Dead Space or Assasin’s Creed for the multiplayer.
4. Would you rather see a beloved series end or get turned into an MMO?
–Rather see it end. MMOs complicate things.
5. Would you rather games get more expensive but have far more content, or get less expensive and have less content?
–Less expensive, less content. The key preference being that it gives developers more wiggle room and less of a “tower of babel” scenario.
6. Would you rather experience your favorite game again for the first time or have HD remakes of all of your favorites?
–Ooh, that’s a tough one. I think I’d like to experience my favorite game(s) again for the first time.
YES! I’ve been waiting for so long for another WYR!
(1) You know me, I always want to see new franchises. Besides, developers always learn from the accomplishments and mistakes of previous games, so a new game would be a fresh slate and an improvement over previous games.
(2) If Halo has taught me anything, it’s to keep your audience at the edge of their seat. Release little bits and pieces, and you’ll draw in people and hook your fans even with just a few screenshots or announcing the control scheme. It’s a lot of fun for the fans and the developers, and fan speculation can inspire the developers once in a blue moon.
(3) I recently ended my Xbox LIVE subscription, so I’m limited to Counter Strike and my single-player games. Therefore, I’d rather the Online Pass waste its assault of futility on multiplayer and leave the single-player experience whole for me. Even if I did have multiplayer, I’d want the Online Pass to stay to multiplayer and let me enjoy the solo experience on my own.
(4) Timmy, you might want to sit down. Sometimes, Timmy, when a video game series has been around for many years and has had a long, fulfilling life, he’s ready to move on to the next life. Everybody moves on when it’s their time. To try to reanimate the series’ corpse and make it dance like a puppet so as to pretend the series still lived is cruel, insane, and illegal, little Timmy.
So yeah, end the series before it gets turned into an MMO that ultimately will never be very successful compared to WoW or meaningful to the original series. If the series was meant to be an MMO, it would’ve already happened.
(5) Having a lot of content can be good for getting a rich experience with a lot of variety, but having a more focused game gives you more concentrated experience. Both are good…but in terms of money, I’d rather play less for more focus.
(6) The choice to have all those HD Remakes is overpowered. Of course I’d rather choose more games over one, even if it was my favorite. A fairer question would ask would I rather experience a favorite game, or get an HD Remake of it, with maybe some added content. I’d rather have the HD Remake with extra content because it’s a tangible addition and I can always go back and experience it. I’m okay with cherishing my memories of the first playthrough.
But when you think about it, this is the question a sequel must raise: Do we recreate the original experience or change and add to it?
1. I like when developers do new things rather than reboot something. It’s pretty much as simple as that. I like to be enthralled by something totally new when I launch up a game and usually reboots suck worse than the original in videogames.
2. Info dump, kind of. I like to see what the features of the gameplay are going to be and if that’s interesting, then I’ll probably be on lock as a buyer. That’s how Saint’s Row got me, that’s how the original Portal got me, and that’s how the new Mortal Kombat got me. It isn’t exactly how the info is delivered as much as what the info tells me. If it’s just a bunch of stuff about story then I’m probably going to ignore, and if it’s a bunch of stuff about multiplayer features that are hardly revolutionary then I’m likely going to ignore.
3. I’m not entirely sure what this question means… if it means would I rather a game need an online pass to play multiplayer or singleplayer then I would rather it necessary for multiplayer since I’m much less likely to play the multiplayer in most cases. I just don’t play that many online games anymore, I’m much more a fan of local multiplayer.
4. REALLY depends on the franchise. I could see a Megaman X MMO being awesome with the different armor parts and weapons that different reploids could customize themselves with, but a Castlevania or Contra MMO would be pretty ridiculous. I’d love to see something along the lines of a Saint’s Row or Bioshock or Gears of War MMO but I’d rather see something like Dead Space or Uncharted or God of War just end where they’re at then go into an MMO.
5. I’d buy more of the less content games and only few of the more content games. Usually I like to have one game that’s kind of a Grand Theft Auto clone sandbox or an Elder Scrolls game while I spend much more of my time on things like Super Meat Boy, Counter-Strike, BIT.TRIP RUNNER, or Contra or whatever. If I had to choose between one or another, I guess I’d say a cheaper one.
6. Experience my favorite game again for the first time. If somebody makes an HD remake of Doom 2 (which they have) it does not compare to the first time I played it by a long shot. If somebody were to make an HD remake of the original Turok then…well that would be awesome on so many levels. Wouldn’t compare to the first time I played though.
1. Sequels seem to be the rage, but brand new kicks ass too, as I say. I just want to have fun playing games again.
2. Probably info dump. Some sort of tech demo like Half-Life 2 did rather than a 60 second pre-rendered -mitch joke here-
3. CD-Key? I don’t know, I’m a PC guy, we’ve been doing this for almost 10 years.
4. End. Please, please, end things when they need to be ended. Breaking Bad will end this summer. It is going to be sad but it needs to happen. No cliffhangers for a movie or “Episodic Content”, just end it when it’s over.
5. Less Expensive and simple. I’ll take Minecraft/Machinarium/Braid/Limbo/RUSH/Bastion/World of Goo/Audiosurf/ before another re-hash.
6. Same old game. HD Remakes kind of happen naturally for PC gamers when they update their PC. You get to play “that” game that barely ran on “low” settings 3-4 years ago on a ridiculous machine. It’s nice to install a game I could barely run last rig and see how pretty it was supposed to be.
Bring it Eddy! I’ll Ju-Jitsu the crap out of you!
1. IO Interactive seemed to attempt this with Kane & Lynch. Either make another Hitman (which they finally did) or a new Freedom Fighters. Failing that: make sure the new IP is actually good. So “scrap it” I suppose.
2. Info dump. I hate a long, slow reveal about something I’ve been craving for a long time (hey look, Hitman weaseled its way back into my thoughts!) or seeing some game and knowing nothing about it but forming a negative opinion of it due to ignorance. It happens.
3. Neither. I hate those things. End of. I’m prepared to fight to the death Eddy.
4. End. Most of my fave series, in my head at least, wouldn’t work in an MMO sense and I’d fear the stain they’d leave on the series as a whole.
5. Either really. Julez pointed out how good these small indie games are and with Steam sales being Steam sales, high price points are immediately counterracted by this service.
6. Have a second first experience. Replay Resi 4 without my ninja knowledge of how to play it? Yes please! Experience SotC’s story all over again? Hell yeah!